Do Your Part: Vintage Fan Performance This Weekend

The newspaper men are full of laughing spite.

They write their stories in advance: The coaches are cartoon buffoons. The QB is a bumbling clown. The Tigers are in a slow decline. Not what they used to be. No sir.

CNNSI notes with apparent glee that LSU has lost its last three home games against ranked opponents.

Herbstreit's been taking online classes at Devry, he's become an overnight statistician: LSU is "trending downwards."

An afterthought in the big bad world of reborn Bamas and slick-skinned Gators.

Somewhere, in a listing corrugated tin shack next to a rusted still, a hollow-eyed hillbilly is on a 1991 IBM PS2, pecking away with nicotine stained fingers, churning out smack talk via dial-up modem:

He's sayin' that the Mountaineers are bringin' fifteen thousand hootin hollerin coal blacked fans.

He sayin' they gonna teach us spoiled LSU supporters what real tailgatin' is.

They gonna outdrink us, outparty us, and outcheer us.

It's an affront. Every bit of it. An insult we cannot tolerate.

So I beg all of the LSU fans who will be in attendence on Saturday night: Make this a Tiger Stadium classic. It's a late night kickoff. 8 PM. Ranked opponent. You can't ask for more. We have the moonshine and the moonlight on our side. Channel your wild, hard livin' Louisiana forefathers. Get in your seats for pregame. Stay until the last note of the alma mater fades out over the levee. Unleash yourselves for sixty minutes. Revive the legends. Throw your heavy voices on the field, stone the Mountaineers to death with noise. Mete out the old time punishment to the enemies of the purple and gold.

When we played USC in 79, they said that the atmosphere made storied Notre Dame look like a romper room.

When we played Auburn in 88, they said we made the earth tremble in fear.

When Florida fell in 97, they said you couldn't hear the Golden Band in all the jubilant madness.

When we broke UGA's heart in 03, they said "The Chant" beat back defeat.

When Tebow was slain in 07, it was the roar that made him bow his head and cry.

What will they say about this weekend's game?

What will they say about WVU 2010?

You decide.